1. Field
An aspect of the present invention relates to a liquid crystal display.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display, which is one of the flat panel displays most widely used at present, includes two display panels on which electric field generating electrodes such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode are formed, and has a liquid crystal layer inserted therebetween.
The liquid crystal display displays an image by generating an electric field on a liquid crystal layer by applying a voltage to the electric field generating electrodes, determining alignments of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer through the generated electric field, and controlling polarization of incident light.
The liquid crystal display further includes switching elements connected to each of the pixel electrodes, and a plurality of signal lines, such as gate lines and data lines, which control the switching elements to apply a voltage to the pixel electrodes.
A liquid crystal display with a vertically aligned mode in which long axes of liquid crystal molecules are arranged to be perpendicular (or normal) to upper and lower display panels in a state in which an electric field is not applied among the liquid crystal displays has a high contrast ratio and easily implements a wide reference viewing angle, thereby gaining the spotlight. Herein, the reference viewing angle refers to a viewing angle in which a contrast ratio is 1:10 or an inter-gray luminance inversion critical angle.
In the case of the liquid crystal display of the vertically aligned mode, in order to make side visibility close to front visibility, a method of dividing one pixel into two subpixels and making transmittance different by applying a different voltage to the two subpixels has been proposed.
However, when the side visibility is close to the front visibility by dividing one pixel into two subpixels and making the transmittance different, luminance is increased at a low gray level or a high gray level, such that it is difficult to represent a gray level at the side, thereby causing the reduction in image quality. Further, when a change of transmittance is unclear according to a change of gray levels, the change of gray levels is not expressed and displaying quality may be deteriorated (e.g., reduced).
When a single pixel is divided into two subpixels, transmittance is reduced due to a gap between the two subpixels.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.